


Sea Monsters

by sunaddicted



Series: 007 Games Fics 2k20 [14]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Angst, Body Horror, Drowning, M/M, Mission Related, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Short, Short One Shot, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25264162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunaddicted/pseuds/sunaddicted
Summary: The water was freezing.[...]He knew that he didn’t have long before hypothermia started to settle in - maybe it already had.
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Series: 007 Games Fics 2k20 [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794529
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40
Collections: 007 Fest Fancreations





	Sea Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> This is my entry for the "Siren" prompt of the Angst Prompt Table.
> 
> The body horror is very mild but still there so, take care.

_ Sea Monsters _

The water was freezing.

James wasn’t quite sure about why his brain was shocked by the fact, the Atlantic in February couldn't have been anything else but bitter cold but there he was, his whole body seized up in pain as his mind ran itself into circles, wondering about why the ocean water surrounding him felt like needles piercing through veins and tendons and deeper until they hit the marrow of his bones, as immovable as surgical nails.

He knew that he didn’t have long before hypothermia started to settle in - maybe it already had.

Somehow, above the sluggish but loud thumping of his own heart in his temples, he heard a splashing noise that sent his already straining heart into a frenzy, ratcheting up the tension that was pervading his whole being as a part of his brain was considering the concrete possibility that he might die right there and then, in the frigid embrace of the ocean he loved so much - the other, louder and more panicky part of his brain could only scream about one thing and one thing only:  _ not Q _ .

James’ disagreement to have Q follow him out in the field had been vehement; the mission’s debrief had already sounded dangerous and complicated enough without adding to it the complication of being saddled with a boffin he would need to look after. Q wasn’t helpless, of course he wasn’t - he couldn’t afford to be, what with the fact that any criminal organizations in the world would have loved nothing more than putting their hands on him to try and carve MI6 secrets out of his flesh, one torturous day after the other until all that was left was the empty husk of the wonderful and brilliant man he was.

So, while it was great that Q was a rather sharp and precise shooter, James knew it would never make up for all the inexperience that the other carried with him when it came to working out in the field.

He had tried to fight against it, to learn all the complicate bits of coding and hacking that Q would need to be on location to do effectively but while he wasn’t as illiterate when it came to computers as people thought him to be, he still wasn’t at the Quartermaster’s levels: he could hack his way past weak firewalls and do a bit of simple coding but he just never had the time nor the guidance necessary to build onto those basic skills.

James turned around in the water, trying to orientate himself despite the fact that everything looked the same: he felt like he was caged in amidst watery walls that varied only in the intensity of the shade of the blue they were, veering from bright aquamarine to indigo; experience taught him that the brighter and lighter the blue, the closer to sunlight and to the surface he wall but it was hard to reason when his lungs were burning for oxygen and every single muscle in his body burnt with the effort and the cold - he just needed to make sure that it hadn’t been Q’s body to fall in the water, that somehow he had managed to overpower one of the bad guys and send them crashing into the freezing waves.

He squinted through the water, trying to make sense of the blurry body that was convulsing rather strangely; it looked like they were trying to take their clothes off of them with the same vigour as if they had been on fire and melting into their skin - didn’t they know how stupid that was? It would only help the water to leech any residual warmth from their body faster, even if admittedly wearing clothes or not wouldn’t really make a difference when one was already dunked beneath the freezing ocean: there was only one way to keep hypothermia at bay and that was to stay as dry as possible.

The person stopped moving, suspended amidst the blue - except that the balled up figure didn’t look like a person at all, fin-covered arms laced beneath what his brain was trying to refuse to elaborate as a fishtail, shimmering silver like bluefish, where until a few moments ago he was sure he had seen perfectly human legs kicking.

He needed to get to the surface and breathe, he knew what an hallucination looked like when he was having one, but the creature unfolded and what oxygen was left in James’ lungs burned away at the sight of the beautiful face swimming towards him -  _ Q’s face _ , still recognisable despite the fanned fins that adorned the edges of his features and the gaping gills slashed across his neck, looking red and inflamed for some reason.

James had never been a particularly imaginative man: he struggled to believe that even while running out of oxygen his brain would come up with such an image to torture him with - which could only mean that what he was seeing not only was possible but that it also was actually true and unfolding in front of his very eyes while he slowly drowned in the Atlantic. He had to repress the need to recoil as Q swam closer, webbed hands outstretched to hold onto the lapels of his ruined jacket in a way that made James think the other wasn't really inclined to let him go, there was no hint of yielding in the other's eyes that burned a shade of emerald that James had never bore testimony to in their relationship - not even when Q had discarded his glasses on the cluttered bedside table in their flat after a long day or in the throes of passion. 

_ He needed to breathe _ .

James could pinpoint the exact moment when he died. 

Except that he didn't - he  _ drowned _ with the other's mouth closed on his own, those lips one last merciful goodbye that James hoped he would be able to carry with him wherever he was going after, be it Heaven or Hell or neither. 

And when Q tugged him up towards the surface, the air wasn't of any relief - it burned empty and useless through his nostrils and into his mouth as something raw in his throat split open and pulsated at the frantic rhythm of his heartbeat "What have you done to me?"

"I saved you" and to do it, Q had had to curse the man he loved - to take him away the humanity that James had fought so hard to keep, one inhuman mission after the other "I couldn't let you go" even if that meant condemning him to eternal damnation. 


End file.
